I’m Not Yours to Keep

I wrote this poem for all Mommies. Hope you enjoy and I hope it reaches and touches the right people.

Dreamstime

I am not yours to keep, Mama.

I’m only yours on loan;

To give your body and your heart,

To give a safe and happy home.

 

 

Hand-picked like flowers from a field,

He placed a halo on your hair,

For you were meant to be my angel,

To be the steward of my care.

 

 

Created with the parts of you,

You love, or try to hide,

He saw the beauty of it all

And mixed it all inside.

 

 

I may have been made out of love;

Or your dignity, he stole;

But the instant I was in your womb,

I had value and a soul.

 

 

Maybe you smiled as I entered the world;

Maybe I never got the chance.

Maybe I was still as you held me

In your tear-stained, trembling hands.

 

 

Maybe I was an easy child,

Or maybe I was not;

Perhaps I was blessed with healthiness,

Or maybe, sick a lot.

 

 

Regardless of my conditions;

If it made you smile or made you weep,

There’s one thing you need to know, Mama;

I was never yours to keep.

 

 

He loved us both with such abundance,

That He chose a place and time,

To introduce us to each other;

To call me yours and call you mine.

 

 

Maybe the purpose of your love

Was to teach me something great;

Your legacy to be left in me,

When you meet Jesus at the gates.

 

 

Or maybe I was but a season,

My life a novel on a shelf;

And with me you learned to love someone

More than you loved yourself.

 

 

No matter what you sacrificed,

No matter what’s at stake;

To let me live, or let me die,

That’s not your choice to make.

 

 

The purpose of it all, Mama,

Lies not with you or me;

Our hearts and lives entwined by grace,

For all eternity.

 

 

I may be called your baby here,

But I belong to Him above;

You’ll hold account for time spent

With He who gave you me to love.

 

 

I hope at the end when at His feet,

Your halo will proclaim,

“Look not just here, but on her heart,

You’ll see the child’s name.”